Home

My software for the site builder is rotating my pics and I cannot find a fix.Note: All pics enlarge when clicked on.

The pics above are for the Lycoming install.

September 27, 2016

Well, I did a first and second flight today. The flights brought out the need to correct two problems.

1. Replumb my pitot/static lines with the kit from Dynon, because I was getting a low air speed indication. I rotated at 55 knots (as per the Dynon PFD).

2. On my first flight, I noticed that my left turns were taking most of my aileron travel with my stick. During my second flight, I was turning into the wind and it was difficult to make the turn. My hand hit the side of the fuselage before the stick could move sufficiently to the left, so I used my right hand and pushed it over for the turn. Back on the ground, I corrected the problem with some adjustments at the firewall and now there is no limitation on left turns. The ailerons were functioning correctly.

June 17, 2016

It has been a while since my last edit on the site. After installing the HIO-360, I took a break to make arrangements to retire. Right now I am remaking the engine cowls. I hope to have a method to make a lower cowl for a standard updraft baffle system without flipping the plane. I am making pics of the work.

October 10, 2015

The HIO-360-D1A overhaul is finished and the engine is on the plane. See chapter 23 for more information.

September 13, 2015

The content on chapter 23 will be undergoing a major overhaul. I have taken off my Renesis engine. The reason lies with a faulty engine computer, that has been discontinued and is now longer supported by RWS (which is closed for business). I have purchased a Lycoming HIO-360-D1A engine. See chapter 23 for pictures of the "overhaul", new engine mount, new accessories, new engine cowlings, new Catto prop and new Saber extension. The word new is used with a lot of angst (aka, pain).

But that is water under the bridge. My thanks goes out to John Boatman for his help during this transition. If you have a RWS EC2 computer, and you are flying with it, then my "hat is off to you". My plane was using the RWS EC3.

New: 10/27/2014 Today I got my airworthiness certificate. That means, I now have an airplane and not a project.

New:

I added a Post Fix Chapter to show what has been changed. This way, you will not miss a change made to one of the chapters. Read that first and when you see anything different in the other chapters, you can be sure to use the "fixed" version (updated).

2. Get rid of the three diode bridges in the wiring plan. See chapter 22.

3. Get the radio to work. All I had to do was switch from a mono headset to a stereo headset.

4. Download the latest Dynon Skyview operating system. See chapter 22 for a plan to keep from running out of battery power for a thirty minute download.

5. Clean off the teflon pipe thead sealer (paste) from all of the fittings in the fuel line fittings. The teflon particles clogged the primary fuel injectors and the engine ran like a COPD patient on a treadmill. Don't use anything on compression fittings and use teflon tape on the non-compression fittings.

06-14-2015

More bumps in the road and fixes.

Flooding

After getting my Air Worthiness Certificate last October, I came back out in April and picked up on preparations for first flight. The new fuel injectors had worked perfectly for the DAR to hear the engine, but I had run the engine twice in the same day for about thirty seconds and turned the engine off. This led to flooding the engine and in April, the engine did not want to start.

Solution: take the spark plugs out and let the gas clear out for at least overnight. Since then, the engine has run perfectly, everytime. I just make sure to run the engine for at least three minutes, and keep it at idle for thirty seconds, before shutting down the engine.

Wheel pants

After getting current with a Diamond DA-20 and no flaps, I was ready for my high speed taxi work. I am blessed to have a runway at MQY of over 8000 feet for high speed taxi. My hanger is at the south end of the runway and the wind was out of the south on the day of my first high speed taxi and to attempt lift off of the canard. My engine will not idle at less than 2700 (see note below)rpm and when I lean out the mixture, the rpm raises to 3150, so the plane wants to taxi at twenty to twenty five knots. That's too fast, so I rode the brakes to the beginning of 14 and then did the high speed taxi like Nat said to do. I got to seventy knots and there was no canard lift off. Bummer! Then I used the brakes to slowdown and rode them some more to get back to the hanger. The engine had run perfectly, but a quick inspection of the plane, showed two problems. My wheel pants did not ventilate enough, at slow taxi, for the abuse that I gave the brakes and the heat build up enough to come very close to igniting the fiberglass on the inside of the wheelpants. Also the O-rings on the brakes failed from the heat, and I began to loose brake fluid. Since I only made one run, this was not a problem. Also, one of the wheel pants rubbed the tire at high speed and they did not give enough ground clearance for the asphalt patches around my old hanger.

Solution:

Take off the wheel pants (sad moment) and replace the O-rings on the brakes and run the engine rich for taxi to lower the rpm and add a second brake fluid resevoir (those things are so small). But I still had the problem of no canard liftoff at 70 knots! I questioned the accuracy of my Dynon airspeed indicator (see note on carnard incidence), so I decided to use the "old school" analog airspeed for the next high speed taxi run.

Redrive seal and Canard incidence

The next high speed taxi was from 32 and so I spent less time at taxi, before the run down the runway. Once again, I got up to 70 knots and this time, I used the analog gauge. Still no lift off of the canard with full elevator deflection. When I got back to the hanger, I was dissapointed to see oil dripping from the lower engine cowling. So, now I have another problems to fix.

I took on the fix of the oil leak, first. I knew that none of the hoses would leak. They are rated for 2000 pounds of burst pressure. The leak was from my redrive and after some review of the install instructions, I found a problem with the oil flow to the redrive. I was routing the oil into the aft port(forward of the prop for Canardians and behind the prop for RV folks), which at a lower waterline and draining it from the forward port on top of the redrive. Tracy says in his install manual "To ensure that the drive is correctly oriented, check to see that the oil return port near the rear of the gear housing is in the 6 O-clock position. The 1/8" NPT threaded hole fo the oil supply line (top) should be at the 11:30 position." My oil flow was putting too much pressure on the seal and it popped forward and heated up and failed. If you ask "How did you know, that it had too much pressure?", then my answer would be that I ordered two seals. If I am wrong on the cause of the seal failure, then I have another seal.

Solution: I reversed the hoses and put in the new seal. (Timken #350909 1.000 X 1.502 X 0.312 @ less than $9) and installed it with Pliobond cement. Do not use red silicone to install it. If you want to replace the larger O-ring that seals the the junction along the housing, then that part description is 351 BUNA N1470-70 ORIB (cost $4.92 for two). If you have Tracy Crook's redrive, I would order the Timken seal and keep it in the plane. Trust me. Nobody will have a clue what the seal is.

Next:

Canard Incidence!

So, I had not attempted to go above 70 knots to rotate and get the canard to lift off. That was a good decision. Nat gave good guidlines for high speed taxi and first flight. I knew that I had checked my canard incidence at the install and I had checked the elevator travel range, so why could I not get the canard to lift on the taxi test? So I got my old "G" template back out. I leveled the longerons and rechecked the canard and the longerons were level to the top of the "G" template. I got my plans back out and recut "G" and also recut Jig #4 and #5 for the main wings and checked the left and right main wings and the canard. The mains were close to level with the longerons, but the canard was way off on the incidence. My "G" template was poorly made. See the pics. The vital thing to accomplish here is to have the same incidence betweent he mains and the canard. Which, I have as of 06-16-15.

My new "G" template showed that the elevator travel was not the problem. I had set my canard incidence too low. This was terrible. I checked the canard incidence several times over the past two years. Each time for with the same poor template. The second pic shows that there is a 1/4 inch error on my "G" template. I have taken the canard off and reset it with the new "G" template and I will make another high speed taxi run at 70 knots. All templates and plans for templates are to be stored away for the future.

06-18-15

All of the work behind my have led to a short in one the connections for the PTT between my Garmin GMA 240 and SL40. I began to pull them out to fix that, but John Boatman, a hanger neighbor, came by and he had watched me run the engine the day before and once again ask me why my engine idled so high. I agreed that it was a problem, but the Ford throttle assembly showed that the air should be cut off to the engine with the throttle pulled all of the way back. We both agreed that the engine was getting air somewhere. The suspect was the fiberglass transition piece that I added to lowere the air intake manifold. I took the plastic part of the air intake manifold off and poured water over it and sure enough it poured into the interior. The engine was sucking in air at my fiberglass piece. It turns out that is is hard to flox and seal to plastic. We both agreed that resealing with flox would be the fix. With air coming in after the MAP ports for the EC3, I am sure that the MAP readings are wrong, besides using the "thinner" hot air from the engine compartment, instead of the filtered, cool air from my scoop on the top of the turtleback.

Don't forget to put 0.7 oz. of oil/gallon of fuel for the Renesis rotary. The IP is powered up.

Note: Dynon has compliance for ADS-B out built into the SV-XPNDR-261, but they have not at this time utilized that capability. The transponder will have a different WAAS GPS added to get the ADS-B function. The ADS-B receiver is sold separately. So I have ADS-B in and the future option of out. They have until 2020 to comply. Pic#1: The correct wiring for the CAS (crank angle sensor). I really wish that Tracy would include this pic in his manual for the EC3.Pic#2: The Dynon 1000 units.Pic#3: Strake landing lights.Pic#4: This is the ADS-B antenna mounted on the front nose panel. I took off the hinges and this allowed for the mount of the 120 mm ground plate (aka small square of aluminum from a disposable cooking pan) and I now have a mount box of glassed pieces for forward placement of the main battery for one person flight.With the addition of ADS-Bas a new standard (as of 2020), I had to go "back to the drawing board" for the transponder antenna. Here is the problem. Dynon says that you need the transponder antenna to be at least 60 inches from the UAT ADS-B receiver antenna and on top of that, the UAT antenna needs to be an external one. See link in chapter 22 for Delta Pop Aviation and for the specifics of the ground plane size (pics too). Pic#5: This is a pic of my "yard ornament" before I took it to MQY.

This is a "Ram" Renesis rotary project, and that means that I added a top scoop for increased air pressure to my AIM. Other than the scoop, I used stock where possible on the engine to lower the risk with a modification of the Renesis setup. The stock AIM or near stock is so important to the performance and reliability of the engine.

I increased my Turtleback by 2" and then added an upturn shape around the ram scoop and this made less modification to be required on the stock AIM (as seen in chapter 23 page). I also made my own cowling (both upper and lower sections). The stock AIM and the ram scoop make the top cowling look much different (aka ugly), but the engine runs smoothly.